Mortal Kombat II (rev L1.4)

Twelve digitized fighters battle to stop Shao Khan and Kintaro from dominating the Earth realm! Regarded as the best of the series.

- TECHNICAL -

Midway T Unit hardware

Main CPU : TMS34010 (@ 6.25 Mhz)

Sound CPU : ADSP2105 (@ 10 Mhz)

Sound Chips : DMA-driven (@ 10 Mhz)

Screen orientation : Horizontal

Video resolution : 400 x 254 pixels

Screen refresh : 53.20 Hz

Palette colors : 32768

Players : 2

Control : 8-way joystick

Buttons : 6

=> [1] High Punch, [2] Block, [3] High Kick

=> [4] Low Punch, [5] Low Kick, [6] Block

- TRIVIA -

This game was the first Midway release to use the DCS Sound System.

'Noob Saibot' backwards spells 'Boon' and 'Tobias' who are the names of the principal game designers.

'Jax' was originally supposed to be in the original "Mortal Kombat" game and named Kurtis Stryker. Jax was then moved to MKII and the Stryker character debuted in "Mortal Kombat 3".

'Kintaro' was originally intended to be a humanoid tiger, similar to the creature in Japanese mythology. This idea was scrapped, however, due to the fact that creating the costume would not have been feasable. However, thanks to this original idea, the Shokan we know as Kintaro has the tiger stripes on his back.

Real life : Philip Ahn, who played the regenerated Shang Tsung, is in fact a doctor.

Three of the cast members for MK2 filed a lawsuit against Midway shortly after the game was released. The claim? The physical instructors/martial artists Elizabeth Malecki (Sonya Blade), Catalin Zamiar (Kitana/Milenna) and Philip Ahn were under the impression that they were hired under typical acting contracts and were entitled to a small modicum of benefits including royalties of title sales, etc. The plaintiffs banded together against Midway, who took the case to court. Eventually the judge failed on Midway's behalf, citing that the work done by the plaintiffs for Midway was done strictly as a 'work-for-hire' and Midway owned all the property and benefits on the characters/titles/etc. As a consequence, all three left the project, and were recast for "Mortal Kombat 3".

SFII / MK2 : both games were supposed to be released within weeks of each other (at this time, "Street Fighter" and "Mortal Kombat" were the dominant fighting games). Capcom released "Super Street Fighter II - The New Challengers" early so that they could attract fans away from MK. At the same time, Midway released MK2 early for similar reasons. As you can see, the result meant that both came back to square one.

'Friendships' and 'Babalities' (see 'Tips And Tricks' section for more info) in MKII were used in making light of the violence controversy in the first "Mortal Kombat" game.

Two non-existent hidden characters were 'Torch', and 'Hornbuckle'. In MKII there is a location called 'The Pit II'. Far in the background of this stage there is another bridge across the chasm. Standing stationary on this bridge are two fighters : one of them is a Liu Kang sprite with green pants who was named Hornbuckle by fans. One of Jade's hints was 'Hornbuckle who?', which people thought was the name of a hidden fighter, and was apparently given to the guy opposite 'Torch' on The Pit II. If you watch the ending credits, one of the programmers' last names is Hornbuckle. The other fighter is a humanoid character that seems to be made of fire. As these two characters never move, it has been suggested that the 'other fighter' is actually a funeral pyre. Finally, there is a cloaked figure who floats in front of the window during fights in The Tower and Portal stages in MKII. This character was dubbed Cloak by fans, and was assumed to be a hidden character. The character of Torch, who had been very popular with fans, eventually showed up as a playable character in "Mortal Kombat : Deadly Alliance". Unfortunately, due to trademark issues, he had to be called Blaze instead of Torch. The true identity of Cloak was revealed in "Mortal Kombat : Shaolin Monks" to be one of Shang Tsung's servants, a shadow priest.

The head that occasionally appears after an uppercut and says 'Toasty' is the digitized head of Dan Forden who worked on the sound and music for the game.

Jimmy Cardenas holds the official record for this game with 282,000 points.

Midway released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (Mortal Kombat II : Music from the Arcade Game Soundtrack) on 1993.

- UPDATES -

REV. 1.1 :

* First version released to the public even though unfinished.

* Contained almost all moves but not many fatalities.

* Kintaro and Shao Kahn very difficult to beat.

* No ending stories.

* Baraka's blade swipe had no sound.

* Shang Tsung had the ceiling walk bug.

* Could beat Kintaro by just punching the entire match.

REV. 1.4 :

* Mileena's ground roll move added.

* Kung Lao's aerial kick added

* Sub-Zero could do the first part of the freeze-uppercut fatality during the match.

* Danger indicator added.

REV. 2.1 :

* First 'official' release version.

* Intro text slightly changed.

* Reptile's slide added.

* Ending story and credits added.

* Computer intelligence improved.

* Nearly all fatalities were added.

* Friendships and babalities were added.

* The pit/spike fatality was added.

* Smoke and Jade were added.

* Kintaro and Shao Kahn easier to defeat.

* Could keep Kintaro and Shao Kahn up in the corner by using repeated punches.